The Incident at the Beginning of the Universe
by KChasm
Summary: Reimu Hakurei is—


**Another Touhou short contest, another entry! This one's, uh...**

 **Anyway, Touhou Project's the creation of Team Shanghai Alice.**

* * *

There is something relaxing about sweeping the leaves away, not that Reimu will admit to it. She has a reputation to keep—guardian of the Barrier, scourge of youkai who toe too close to the line—and maybe it's only pride, but she'd rather pretend that she doesn't enjoy the peaceful moments, too. So, when she sees Marisa rushing up the shrine steps, she schools her face into a scowl and the grip around her broom into something white-knuckled, and by the time her friend is standing in front of her, gasping with lost breath, hat in one hand and Mini-Hakkero in the other, there she is again—the Reimu Hakurei known and feared, and sometimes loved.

"Couldn't you have flown?" she says.

"No time!" Marisa laughs. "It's an _incident_!"

And this is why this Reimu Hakurei is needed. "What kind of incident?" she asks.

"Someone's stealing vegetables from the Village—no, no, listen to this." Marisa waves her hands, warding off the long-suffering gaze directed her. "It's not just vegetables. That's the weird part! It's a lot of odds and ends, and not just from the shops, either."

"So it's a thief. That's not something you need a shrine maiden for."

"Well, yeah, it seemed like that. But then Alice was complaining about some of her old puppets missing, and when I woke up this morning some of my reagents were gone, too. Someone came in and took my stuff! Can you _believe_ that?"

Reimu can. "I still say this isn't something you need a shrine maiden for," she says. "That police officer—talk to _her_."

"What police officer?"

"What, you don't remember? That..."

And then Reimu trails off, because there was a face there, a name, a moment ago. She knew full well who she meant. And now she doesn't.

"It doesn't matter," she says. "Keine, then. She's in charge of the Village, right?"

"Uh, I don't know if you'd say 'in charge'."

"But close enough to mean the same thing. Talk to _her_ , not me."

"Aren't you just avoiding your responsibilities?"

It's a new voice. Reimu turns, knowing what she'll see before she sees it—Yukari Yakumo, smiling at her over her fan from another hole in the world. "Oh," she says. "It's you."

"Then again, I suppose you might call this 'management'," Yukari says, as if Reimu hasn't said anything to her at all "Or would 'delegation' be a better word?"

"Whatever you call it, it isn't my problem," Reimu says. She reaches for her broom, set to continue sweeping the grounds and ignoring the problem as long as she can, but she can't find it. Actually, she can't remember having put it down.

It's a kind of resignation that hangs over her when she figures it out. "How did that happen?" she groans. "We were all _here_."

"See?" Marisa says. "That's no normal thief. That's an incident!"

"Of course," Yukari continues, as if uninterrupted, "there's something to be said for a personal approach."

Reimu closes her eyes, calling up the familiar facade. When she opens them, it's the glare sharp as flint again. "I get it, I get it—so I just have to _resolve_ this, right?"

"Well, I'm going too," Marisa says. "It was _my_ stuff that got stolen."

"And I'll be there, as well," Yukari adds.

Reimu's eyebrows rise. "You will?" she says.

"Of course. I'll be right _here_ with you." And Yukari flips her fan closed, pointing it at Reimu's chest—at her heart.

That's more the usual. "If you're not going to be any help, just go already," Reimu sighs, and Yukari smiles, even as the gap slides shut, leaving Reimu gazing into empty air once again until Marisa shoves at her shoulder.

"So are you coming or what?" she says.

"Yeah, yeah," Reimu mutters, and then—

* * *

There's nothing but irritation to be had from sweeping the leaves away, not that Reimu will admit it. She has her responsibilities to keep—guardian of the Barrier, last of the Hakurei she—and clearing the walk has to be one of the most basic among them. And if she can't get through _that_ , how can anybody count on her for the more complicated rituals? Or for the usual exterminations?

Still, for her poise, she can't help but let some of the annoyance slip. It's there, for anyone who knows what to look for. The stiffness of the jaw, and the too-tight grip of her fingers around the stick of the broom.

"Yo! Reimu!"

She counts to five, then carefully, _carefully_ turns around. "What is it?" she says.

"Some kind of incident happening—want to check it out?"

The girl grinning at her is Marisa, and for the life of her Reimu can't decide if she's better or worse than the leaves. "What kind of incident?" she says.

"Someone's been stealing vegetables out of the market!"

Marisa says this cheerily, witch's hat perched atop her head in a way that ought to have seen it blown off a hundred times over, a broom tucked under her arm that Reimu is sure has never been used for sweeping, and for a moment the reach of Reimu's hatred is almost so blinding as to be transcendental. But she is the Hakurei shrine maiden, and _she is the Hakurei shrine maiden_ , so she chokes it down and only says:

"Again?"

"'Again'?" Marisa blinks owlishly at Reimu. "What do you mean, 'again'?"

"Hasn't this happened before?"

"Has it?"

"It has. Or something like it," she says, but as soon as she says it, she's not so sure. She barely visits the human settlement, and it's not as if anyone goes out of their way to deliver news all the way to the shrine. Where would she have heard of a vegetable thief? Marisa? But Marisa doesn't remember—

"Well, I don't know if it happened _before_ , but it's happening _now_ ," Marisa says, and Reimu shakes the thought away. It's taking her in circles. "It's not just vegetables, either—Rika had her workshop picked clean, and someone broke into the mansion."

"Which mansion?" Reimu asks.

"You know, the haunted one—the poltergeist one."

"The Prismrivers."

"Who?"

"The—" And Reimu stops, because Marisa is right to say 'who'. Reimu knows which mansion Marisa means, and it has nothing to do with the Prismrivers. Reimu doesn't know what a Prismriver _is_. "Forget it," she says. "Fine. I'll go. Just as soon as Genjii wakes up."

"No need to wait, my lady. I may be an old turtle, but even I can't sleep through an incident like this."

Genjii floats toward Reimu like an idle weight in a current, and to Reimu the sight is calming. For all his inherent oddness, Genjii has been a constant presence in Reimu's life, up to the day he disappeared. Seeing him tread the air in front of her, head tilted up as he waits for her to climb onto his back—it's normal. It's fine. Everything is fine.

And then Marisa, who can't keep her mouth shut, says, "You mean we woke you up, right?" and the moment is gone.

"Let's go," Reimu says. And then, to Genjii: "So anything _you_ want to say?"

"A simple thief shouldn't be difficult, but all the same, you shouldn't underestimate your opponent," Genjii says. "This could be a large incident in the making, no matter what it looks like."

Reimu can feel the corner of her mouth turn up despite herself. "Yeah, I'll be careful, Gramps."

" _'Gramps'_? My lady—"

And he's still protesting, even as he rises, Reimu holding tight to his back, the shrine—and that feeling of unease—fading into the scenery beneath her. Marisa rises along her, legs dangling over the side of her broom.

She turns a smirk toward Reimu, and Reimu isn't going to smile back, not without something at stake, but it isn't too much effort to spare a nod back, if it's only a short one. And then—

* * *

There is something in sweeping the leaves today that unnerves Reimu, not that she wants to say it. She has swept the path for years—she'll sweep it for the rest of her life, if it all goes right—and this feeling of _repetition_ , she knows, is just familiar muscle motion and the confusion of memories. She knows this. She _knows_ this.

Still, she can't shake it. I've done this before, she thinks, and the broom drags against the stone path, back and forth, back and forth. It sounds like the dragging of feet. Like her heartbeat. These leaves, _these_ leaves—

"Reimu."

Reimu looks up, and is glad to. "Ellen," she says. "What is it?"

Ellen is Reimu's friend. She smiles, and has too many teeth, like the opposite of a dream, but Reimu is envious. _When you don't lose your teeth, you haven't really lost anything,_ she thinks, and then thinks: _Now I am told it is an incident._

"I'm a cameo," says Ellen, and smiles and smiles.

Reimu puts her broom to the side. It goes somewhere. It isn't important. "What kind of incident?" she asks.

"I wasn't supposed to mean anything, you know," says Ellen. "I don't know if he ever thought it would get this popular."

"Listen," says Sanae. "Do you know about the hero's journey?"

"A thief?" says Reimu. "I don't think that's something you need a shrine maiden for, if it's a thief."

"I suppose 'cameo' isn't the right word. 'Reference' would fit better," says Ellen.

"Never mind, never mind," says Sanae. "Forget the hero's journey. I don't know anything about the hero's journey. Mine is aliens, and super robots. But I'm the only one who could _mention_ the hero's journey, so it had to be me. Understand?"

Whether she believes her or not doesn't particularly matter, not when it's clear she's going to be needled until she agrees to look into this "incident". There's something comfortable about the routine, though, so she almost doesn't mind. "Well, I _guess_ I've got nothing better to do," she says.

Mima is there, eager to play at something malevolent even as she gives Reimu advice. Or Yuuka is there, tending to her garden as she passes off encouragement doublespoken in threat. Or Rumia is there, long hair unadorned, the motherly youkai saved by a miracle. Or Reimu's mother, the acting Hakurei shrine maiden, letting her child make tracks out into the world. Or Kanako, who believes in her wholeheartedly, even when her motives are mercenary. Or Mokou, or Byakuren, or Shinki, or Aya, and then—

* * *

Reimu is not sweeping the stone pathway to the shrine. Reimu has never swept the stone pathway to the shrine, and Reimu has never thought to sweep the stone pathway to the shrine. There is no stone pathway, and no shrine, and the chair that Reimu is sitting in has existed only so long as Reimu herself.

There is another person here, something that looks like a girl. She's trimming away at the branches of a bonsai tree with a set of small shears.

"Nature abhors a vacuum," she says.

Reimu doesn't respond.

"I can say that because I'm old, or because you don't know who I am," says the thing that looks like a girl. "If it hadn't been me it might have been Eirin, but it more likely would've been Yukari. That's a cliché, though."

"What is this?" says Reimu. There's something wrong with her throat, like it wasn't meant for talking.

"Don't worry about it. Did you know that Keine's been trying to put together something on the history of Gensokyo? Hey, you do know who Keine is, right?"

Keine. Of course Reimu knows Keine.

She's not entirely sure she knew her before anyone mentioned her name, that's all.

"It doesn't have to be Keine, particularly," says the thing that looks like a girl, as if she knows what Reimu is thinking, and maybe she does. "It could be anyone who fills the function." The tiny shears _snip_. "Anyway, it won't work. Not that there's anyone set to keep it from working—it just won't work. You know what the problem with faith is?"

She looks at Reimu, holding the gaze like she expects an answer, but Reimu doesn't say anything there, either, and after a second the head dips down toward the tree again, ears bobbing with the movement. They aren't her ears. They're a rabbit's ears.

"I'm not your Tewi," says the thing that looks like a girl. "Or I might be. Anyway, the problem with faith is that it's too mutable. You write it down and it's not faith anymore, it's history. Gensokyo doesn't _do_ history. Really, it cracks me up, the way some of you look at Gensokyo like it's something natural. Most places stay up whether people believe in them or not. Get it?"

"No," says Reimu.

"That's fine. In fact, it's better you don't get it. That's what faith's all about, after all—going along with things you don't understand." Her shears keep snipping, pruning away, and Reimu wants to scream at her to stop, but she can't muster up the energy for it. Her voice dies in her throat.

"This one'll be a doozy," says the thing. "I'd say 'hold on tight', but it wouldn't really matter. Something has to happen."

There is one final _snip_ , and for a second Reimu thinks that nothing has happened after all, but then the thing that looked like a girl raises its head and it doesn't have a face.

And now Reimu can't even think of screaming.

And it says, "And then—"

* * *

Reimu is there. Reimu is a girl. Reimu is a woman. Reimu has a sense of duty. Reimu would rather be elsewhere. Reimu is carrying out an action befitting of her station. Reimu is visited by a friend. The friendship is mutual. The friendship is one-sided. The friendship is developing. The friend alerts Reimu to the makings of an incident. Reimu is eager. Reimu is reluctant. Reimu is bitter. Reimu is dutiful. Reimu is waylaid by a mentor figure. It is Reimu's mentor figure. It is someone else's mentor figure. The advice the mentor figure gives is useful. The mentor figure only serves to annoy. The mentor figure can only give encouragement. The mentor figure will assist Reimu directly. Reimu sets off to resolve the incident. Reimu will resolve the incident.

And then everything is fine.

* * *

 **Yeah, so metafic can be awful fun.**

 **No, but seriously—I wrote a Touhou fic about Touhou fic and the ambiguity of canon and all the varieties of Reimu I've seen Reimuing around and I literally put _Black Tewi_ in it. Somewhere, someone who uses the term "secondaries" unironically has just gotten the devil's headache.**


End file.
